JERUSALEM — Israel’s deputy defense minister threatened Tuesday to target Hamas political leaders, calling them “terrorists in suits” after a rocket attack by the Islamic militant group killed an Israeli woman.

The harsh words were backed up by action. Israel airstrikes targeted two suspected arms caches and two Hamas bases. Later, an Israeli helicopter strafed a rocket launch site with machine-gun fire near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Palestinian officials said a total of 10 people were wounded.

Just before midnight Tuesday, Israeli planes struck unoccupied buildings used by Hamas-linked forces, Palestinians said. The Israeli military said aircraft destroyed an arms store in northern Gaza and fired toward a Hamas base in Rafah.

The 31-year-old woman who died Monday night was the first Israeli killed by a Palestinian rocket since November, inviting a harsh response. Militants fired nine more rockets at Israel on Tuesday, slightly wounding two people, the army said.

Israeli leaders suggested that even Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas could be targeted in reprisals, with Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh calling Hamas’ leaders “terrorists in suits” in a radio interview.

“We don’t care if he’s a ringleader, a perpetrator of rocket launching or if he is one of the political leaders,” Sneh later told The Associated Press. “No one has immunity.”

Wary of Israeli strikes, leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza have lowered their profiles, turning off cell phones and staying off the streets.

“Harming … any of Hamas’ leadership will cost the occupation dearly,” he said. “This will mean responses.” He did not elaborate.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of the moderate Fatah, traveled from his West Bank headquarters to Gaza for talks with Hamas leadership in a last-ditch attempt to salvage a truce with Israel and rein in factional bloodletting between the two factions.

Abbas himself is seen as a potential target of Hamas. Witnesses said he entered the strip Tuesday evening in a motorcade of dozens of vehicles bristling with armed guards, while presidential security forces locked down central Gaza thoroughfares and marksmen staked out rooftop vantage points along the route to his seafront official residence.

Fatah officials said Abbas would meet Haniyeh but would not divulge the timing or location, citing security concerns.

After a six-month lull, Israel resumed airstrikes on militant targets in Gaza last Wednesday in response to heavy rocket fire. More than 40 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed.

Israel’s high-tech military has not been able to find a solution for countering the crude homemade rockets. In the past week, more than 150 rockets have landed in and around Sderot, a town of 24,000 people about a mile from the Gaza border.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz told visiting European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana that Israel was holding off on launching a major ground offensive into Gaza in order to give diplomacy a chance to defuse the crisis, Peretz’s office said.

The government evacuated hundreds of Sderot residents to hotels in other parts of the country for the Shavuot Jewish holiday, which began at sundown. The evacuation was orderly, and Israeli soldiers helped people board the buses.

Mechi Friederwitzer-Fendell, who immigrated to Israel from New York city in 2000 and has raised seven children in Sderot, said she is staying put. But she urged the government to get tougher still with the Palestinians.

“Maybe we should knock down some houses,” she said. “They fire a missile and we destroy a few houses, let them realize that we can’t stand for this.”

Hamas’ rocket attacks apparently have been aimed at triggering an Israel response that could unite Palestinians and end the infighting. Some 50 people were killed in the factional violence last week.

Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official, said the group would consider talks on a cease-fire, if Israel first stopped its “mad attacks.”

“The aggression must stop so we can talk about a comprehensive cease-fire,” said Youssef, a top aide to Haniyeh. “The government is working on expanding the truce. This is a national interest.”

Israel dismissed talk of a new cease-fire, saying Hamas never sticks to truces.

“Hamas … is leading the violence,” Peretz said. “We don’t intend on stopping. We will stop at the point that the rockets stop.”